Re : [Janeites] No scenes of Jane & Bingley, of Brandon & Marianne walking, talking &c
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that is the characters write at such length as to allow the
author to dive into his or her subconscious, reach that part of the
mind from which dreams come. Why do you think that the author is diving into his or her subconscious in these cases? Begin forwarded message:
From: "Ellen Moody via groups.io" <ellen.moody@...>
Subject: Re: [Janeites] No scenes of Jane & Bingley, of Brandon & Marianne walking, talking &c
Date: 20 May 2025 at 22:54:23 BST
To: [email protected]
Resent-From: ellen.moody@...
Reply-To: [email protected]
Why thank you, Dorothy. I saw your email earlier today about the
prevalence of dramatic dialogue or narrative in parts of P&P. These
are found everywhere in epistolary novels, which when they really "get
going;" that is the characters write at such length as to allow the
author to dive into his or her subconscious, reach that part of the
mind from which dreams come. In Clarissa after a while no one could do
anything else, but write day and night, and still there would not be
enough time t write that much. The same holds true for Grandison,
Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise and others.
I cannot remember when I first read S&S to tell you where I was but I
had read it and P&P by the time I was 13. The scene that riveted me
was the one where Lucy Steele "confides" in Elior that she & Edward
have been engaged for four years. I felt all Elinor's stunned shock,
disbelief at first, grief in the following chapters where we enter
into her thinking about it.Davies conception absolutely depends on
Thompson's screenplay and the 1996 movie
Here is a blog where I wrote out my thinking about P&P
Here are all the calendars:
I rejoice we have gotten friendly here on Janeites
Ellen
On Tue, May 20, 2025 at 4:57?PM Dorothy Gannon via groups.io
<dorothy.gannon@...> wrote:
Ellen, I¡¯m fascinated by your thoughts on the process of creating and revising the novels. I have a vivid recollection of where I was the first time I read S&S (perhaps the only one of Austen¡¯s novels for which that is the case) at the moment when it is revealed that it is Edward¡¯s brother who married Lucy Steele, when suddenly, bam! - the melancholy story abruptly turns into a happy ending. Well, I didn¡¯t see *that* coming, was my thought.
Yes, I just rewatched the Davies S&S and noticed how he plumped the role of Brandon out even beyond what Thompson accomplished in her screenplay ¨C and I think Davies¡¯s version owes a lot to hers. It¡¯s fascinating how much they added to the character of Brandon.
I wasn¡¯t able to get to your webpage, Ellen, when I began writing this note, but look forward to reading it after I return home.
Dorothy
Ellen wrote:
In response to Dorothy,
Well I'm an interested party. I wrote and published one paper
ferreting out the underlying calendar of S&S; the other 6 I did it was
too much ( lifetime) to try to write up essays so I just place them on
my website:
From these intensive studies I concluded S&S and P&P originally
epistolary novels, and whole parts of MP (especially between
Portsmouth, London, the house), and that Persuasion is seriously
unfinished -- it was to have a third volume. I also felt I saw gaps
showing where sutures happened.
Austen herself said she drastically cut P&P because she was determined
it should be published. Remember she was waiting 30 years ... NA first
finished 13 years ago when she wrote present preface
Anyway (I put this in a blog on the calendar for P&P) I noticed Volume
I had very short chapters, much shorter than those of Vol 2 and 3. One
way to lop and chop once you know what is primary is cut the talk and
dance scenes themselves between Jane & Bingley; just leave narrative.
They are not the major couple; linchpins are in Elizabeths (proposals)
and Lydia's story (elopement)
I think S&S is a book too revised, over revised so to speak. I'm not
sure she knew how she meant to end it. Read carefully and you discover
what Thompson did for her film: Brandon silent, often not there, the
favored presence Wlloughby; nonetheless, it's Brandon to the rescue
each time -- the assembly dance, Marianne's near mortal illness,
retrieving her from the storm, retrieving the mother to be there, then
it is he who knows and was involved in the story of Willoughby & Eliza
2. Elinor right; there is something that needs to be explained in
Willoughby's obsessive nasty attacks, mocking of Brandon.
We attack a person we know we have badly wronged (see Mrs Norris'
behavior to Fanny). Yes just a sentence, but a real duel. So I think
that the last 3 chapters are short, especially that final one.
generalized, truncated, actually written very late (To have an ending)
around 1811. Then Thompson and after her Davies builds up Brandon
enormously. So here we are -- she & Davies added scenes of
conversations and lengthened what was there for Brandon. Go to book.
Almost none of it is is there, no one-on-one conversations
Ellen
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